August 22, 2006

Interesting Find at Hotline

We don't as a rule publish results from Zogby Internet or Rasmussen polls.

And we are generally wary about putting too much stock into one campaign's internal polls. An exception carves out when those polls are openly released and touted -- and when the opposing campaign fails to respond or responds in a way that suggests their internal snapshot looks much the same.

Can't say I disagree. Then it delivers the goods:

Fresh from the field, the DSCC released a poll conducted by the Berenson Strategy Group showing an 11 point lead by Bob Casey in a three way Pennsylvania Senate race with Sen. Rick Santorum and Green Party candidate Carl Romanelli. In a two-way race absent Romanelli, Casey leads by 14 points.

It includes an explanation for Ricky's recent uptick in the polls:

Newhouse conveniently notes that the campaign "isn't scheduled" to go back in the field until after Labor Day, but pointed that a slew of public polls showed a tightened race after a $5M largely unanswered Santorum television buy.

And the conclusion to the piece?

Is the race closer than it was before? The preponderance of the data, which includes several public polls, reactions from the campaigns and the general effect of television advertisements, suggests that it is. That same evidence suggests that as soon as Casey's television presence matches Santorum's and voters begin to follow the race, the tightening that Santorum is touting and the Democrats say isn't there -- might go away.

1 comment:

Sen. Santorum is getting a ton of free pub on Comcasts "meet the newsmakers" show. Every time I click through, I see Rick.

When will Casey decide to remind the voters that Sen. Santorum does not live in Pennsylvania? He could make the guy run against himself, by running Sen. Santorums old ads from his first campaign, when he said that Doub Walgren--didn't live in Pennsylvania.